It has been and remains the practice within a variety of marketing fields to utilize portable signs capable of retaining any of a variety of advertising messages which are simply erected in the region of a property or structure being sold. For example, in the real estate field there has arisen the practice of erecting a sign near the roadway access of a property or house being offered for sale. Such signs will carry an identification and telephone number of the interested realtor as well as additional data such as the name of a salesman assigned to the sale and often a feature of relevancy of the property, such as the number of bedrooms and presence of a den and other popular features.
Inasmuch as a relatively great number of such signs generally are required in a given region, it is desirable that frame assemblies be available which easily receive and retain any of a broad variety of sign boards or sheets; which are easily erected on a property; which are easily transported in a salesman's automobile; and which are economical to manufacture. Ease in portability suggests that the sign be supportable by insertion of the legs or other appendages thereof into the terrain or soil to avoid bulksome transversely oriented bases and the like and to assure resilliance against commonly encountered wind loadings. To provide for such support, however, the frame assemblies must be sufficiently rugged to withstand hammer or light sledge blows incurred in the course of their erection. Sign board retention features of the frame assembly should be such as to permit facile insertion and removal as well as to assure an adequate peripheral engagement to provide security against a loss thereof due to wind-loading and the like. Insertion of the sign should be simple, being carried out without the utilization of connectors, dual frame enclosure structures and the like. Where justified by cost, the frame assemblies also should be capable of accommodating sign boards or sheets of varying sizes, again without recourse to the use of connectors such as bolts and the like. Simplicity of manufacture looks to the attainment of necessary structural features suited to allow for erection as well as sign retention without recourse to the utilization of complex components or a multitude of such components. Of course, the frame assemblies also must exhibit a design that is esthetically pleasing in nature so as not to detract from the advertising message supported thereby.